The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) develops and promotes industry standard specifications for hardware-enabled trusted computing and security technologies such as a trusted platform module (TPM). A TPM enables secure storage of digital keys, certificates and passwords and is less vulnerable to software and hardware attacks. In general, TPMs are delivered to a customer without an “owner” so that the customer can take “ownership” of the TPM which in turn facilitates enablement/disablement of the TPM and activation/deactivation of TPM capabilities. Once in the field (e.g., “manufacturing complete”), an upgrade to TPM capabilities may be desired or required. However, when a field upgrade is ready to be implemented or executed, ownership of the TPM has not necessarily been established, thereby hindering application of the field upgrade.